


To Be Alone With You

by ktfics



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Despair Disease (Dangan Ronpa), M/M, Paranoia, Sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 04:44:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19760863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktfics/pseuds/ktfics
Summary: Kokichi and Kaito are forced to confront their fears and the reality of their situation when they both contract the despair disease.





	To Be Alone With You

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the oumota week day three prompt sickness. Follow me on tumblr @dykeenvy to talk oumota! 
> 
> Content warning for paranoia and discussion of self-destructive habits.

Kokichi’s heart is beating in his throat.

His vision swims as he attempts to focus on the floor beneath him. He’s actually been poisoned; that has to be it. Miu got a little more clever than he gave her credit for, and decided to take him out in some untraceable method.

He’s dying, and it’s going to be for fucking nothing. He’s going to die, unloved and fucking useless. He’s going to die and nothing at all is going to change.

Kokichi digs his fingernails into the floorboards and scratches, hoping to leave some kind of mark, hoping to spill some kind of blood that for once he’s in control of-

“Ouma, what’re you doin’?” Kaito’s voice slurs out from across the room. Kokichi counts each of his footsteps as he walks closer. One, two, three, four- it’s enough time for him to run, if he needs to. He forces himself to stay put.

“Hey,” Kaito leans down and wraps his hand loosely around Kokichi’s wrist, and Kokichi is unable to disguise his responding flinch. “Quit that. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“Better than someone else doing it first,” Kokichi hisses out, and Kaito frowns, able to look him in the eyes for only a moment before he has to look away. Kokichi can see the still-wet tear stains running down the other boy’s face; he’s been crying on and off ever since the two of them were quarantined in here.

Kokichi reaches a hand up and wipes away a tear before he can stop himself, suddenly remembering ten other people that supposedly loved him that he used to have to comfort from time to time.

They’re not real, of course, but neither is he, and neither is Kaito, so he figures the least he can do is provide flimsy support for a boy that’s fake in more ways than one.

“What’re you-” Kaito startles, but almost leans into the contact. Kokichi can’t help but snicker.

“Are you gonna punch me, Momota-chan? You wanna try to make me a little more agreeable?” A sob is ripped out of Kaito’s throat, and he collapses next to Kokichi. Kokichi’s skin burns from the closeness.

He hates this, hates how much he wants Kaito to hit him, just to get it over with, just to prove that he’s capable of disgusting even the brightest symbol of belief in this shitty prison they’ve been trapped in.

He hates even more how much he doesn’t want Kaito to hit him. He had thought that kind of weakness had already rotted out of him.

“I don’t- I don’t wanna fuckin’ hurt you, man.” Kaito seems conflicted between trying to get closer to Ouma and trying to avoid his stare. “I’m fuckin’ sick of violence. I’m sick of blood.”

Kokichi thinks back to when he had caught Kaito coughing up his lungs in one of the school bathrooms. He thinks about the blood speckled on the other boy’s shirt right now. “You’re going to die.”

Kaito hunches into himself. “I know.”

“I searched this entire fucking academy, the warehouse, the labs, the underground tunnel, and I can’t find an antidote. You’re going to die and I can’t stop it.” Kokichi’s heart pounds in his ears like a jackhammer. 

A fear disease, Monokuma had said. Funny, Kokichi doesn’t feel that much more scared than usual. He just feels a bit more honest about it.

“You- you did?” Kaito finally turns back to look him in the eyes again.

“You’re going to die,” Kokichi grits his teeth, and they clatter a bit; he’s shaking. “You’re dying. I don’t want you to.”

“I thought you hated me?” Kokichi shakes his head and lets a laugh tumble out of his throat.

“What’s there to hate? Wonderful Momota-chan, beloved by all. You’re just… so stupid. No one wants to watch you burn out- I can’t-” The words get stuck inside of him. He can’t think properly like this, not when there’s a fever burning it’s way through him and adrenaline pumping hard enough through his veins to make them explode. Fight or flight, fight or flight, how about both? How about he goes out in a blaze of glory and leaves everyone behind?

The thought isn’t a comfort so much as it fuels his mania.

“Ouma- fuckin’ stop that.” Kaito’s hand returns to his wrist to stop Kokichi from digging his fingernails into his own skin this time.

“You’re an idiot and you’re everything I can’t be but everyone needs you, do you get that, Momota-chan? We’re both liars but it’s your job to be loved and it’s my job to… to provide an outlet. To keep anyone from ruining things by getting too close.” Kokichi has to search the room just to make sure there are no weapons being pointed at him right now. He tries once more to find the cameras that he’s sure are watching, and the fact that he can’t immediately spot any just makes his skin prickle uncomfortably.

“I’m-” He can tell Kaito wants to protest his own status as a liar, but, ironically enough, his honesty disease prevents him from doing so. Instead, he switches topics. “Do you really think that?”

“What, that you’re an idiot?” Kokichi laughs nervously.

“No, that you’re supposed to- let yourself get hurt, or yelled at, or whatever.” Kaito hasn’t let go of his wrist yet. Kokichi wonders what his hands look like when they’re covered in blood.

“No one is supposed to get hurt, Momota-chan. Some people are just-” His vision blurs, his eyes going glassy as he speaks, “Some people are just better at it than others. Some people live life and they spend all their time dying.”

“That’s not true.” Kaito’s voice cracks as he speaks, and Kokichi is reminded that they’re both just teenagers, both just kids. “We’re alive.”

“For now. Don’t you spend most of your time thinking about how to die in a way that matters, though?” Another sob rumbles out of Kaito’s throat.

“I don’t wanna die at all!” Kokichi watches the boy fall apart in front of him. “I miss my grandparents,” Kaito admits, very quietly. “I miss home. I miss being able to talk about the future without being afraid of it.”

Kokichi watches a tear drip down onto the floor below him, but this one falls from his own eyes. “I’m scared,” he admits in return. He can’t get his hands to stop trembling.

“You know,” Kaito breathes out a very shaky laugh, “I was jealous of you. I thought you weren’t scared of anything. I thought you might actually love it here.”

“I told you, Momota-chan,” Kokichi pauses and shudders, “I’m very good at getting hurt. And I’m a very good liar.”

“You shouldn’t have to be; you shouldn’t have to get used to people treating you like shit. It shouldn’t take a fuckin’ disease to get you to admit you’re scared.”

Kokichi turns to glare at him. “You’re a fucking hypocrite.”

Kaito looks at him, and even with the tears rolling down his face, Kokichi can tell it's a sadness that has nothing to do with pity. There is something dangerously close to understanding blooming between them, just as certainly as a virus spreads.

Kaito tries to hide another cry as he leans forward and wraps Kokichi up into a hug. Kokichi blinks and tries to hold back his shiver, tries to pretend that he knows what to do with comfort, tries to tell himself that this, too, terrifies him in the same way that he is scared of almost everything nowadays; tries to tell himself that fear is the only emotion the embrace elicits.

“We’re not gonna make it out of here alive,” Kaito mutters, his disease warping his normally heroic speech. “But we can sure as hell try, can’t we?”

Kokichi thinks back to all his plans, his blueprints, his frantic scribblings. “Yeah. We can certainly try, Momota-chan.”


End file.
